I’m in tech for a show in a new theatre with an all brand new fixtures. I have had 2 fixtures give me this error. I’ve swapped them out with spares for now, but I’m wondering if I’m going to have other fixtures with the same issue. Anyone know what could be going on with this?

Did you go to a concert or event and see a lighting effect you love but couldn't identify the gear? This is your weekly spot to post images and figure out what you saw, and ask basic questions you have. Any individual identify that ________ posts outside of this thread will be removed.

Hi Reddit, I’m Chris, the owner of Schematic Works. I started this business in 2018 to address a common issue: getting studio and lighting equipment repaired often meant relying on busy manufacturers who only service their own products. I wanted to create a one-stop shop where the photo, motion, and entertainment industry could find reliable, comprehensive support.

Based in Brooklyn, NY, we focus entirely on repairs and studio services—no rentals, no production. Occasionally, we offer used or rebuilt gear, but our mission is to keep your equipment and spaces running smoothly.

Here’s what we do:

• Warranty Services: Astera, Briese, Hive, NANLUX, Advantage Gripware, and more.
• Non-Warranty Repairs: ARRI, Broncolor, Profoto, Mole Richardson, and others.
• Studio Services:
  • CYC Wall Builds and Repairs: From brand-new installations to fixing cracks and wear.
  • Power Distribution Solutions: Custom setups for productions of all sizes.
  • Studio Maintenance and Support: Hanging blackout curtains, adjusting gear, and handling the small but essential fixes.

What’s been your biggest challenge with equipment repairs or studio maintenance? Are there services you wish were more accessible? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences—let’s start a conversation!

Hi,

Does anyone have a fix solution for this?

https://youtube.com/shorts/2sdjfRNQJ4s?feature=share

Hi!

I'm running the lights for an underground warehouse rave in 2 weeks. In addition to the main lighting package, I would really like to light up the architecture of the space as cheaply as possible, both for looks and attendee safety. The main room is 200'Dx60'Wx30'H and I would like to light as much of the walls as possible using whatever I can turn into uplights (this is again more for safety than anything else).

I Need the Lights to be

• Battery powered (able to last 10hrs)
• Colored Red (full RGB would be nice, but not at all a requirement)
• So cheap that it doesn't matter if they are stolen (say 10$/light, but that is negotiable)
• "set and forget" I want to stick them down and not worry about them for the rest of the night
• Ideally focused (focused by a lens/mirror into a beam instead of cast light in every direction, it doesn't need to be remotely high quality though)

They don't need to be

• DMX addressable or really controllable in any way other than setting the color to red
• Particularly bright
• High quality or fancy in any way

It should go without saying that I am absolutely not expecting to use a stage light for this purpose, and am instead hoping to tap into the collective knowledge of random things that glow and cheap DIY solutions.

The obvious solution would be to buy some Rockville Battery Powered Uplights which would do everything I need and more, but those are unfortunately just far too expensive (although if cheaper battery powered options exist, please do send them over).
There are also the insanely cheap Chinese Pars which would work great if only they were battery powered. I also came across these cheap Puck Lights that seemed great, if just far too dim.
I found cheap red MR16 Bulbs (these and these) as well as some red E26 bulbs (although I prefer the MR16's beam shape) which could work great, but I can't seem to find any battery powered bases to push/ screw them into.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, no matter how outside the norm :)

Hi Folks, using lumenradio Stardust and Aurora. Everything works perfectly fine when using grandMA3 and SACN. However, when trying SoundSwitch and Art-Net, nothing works. In SoundSwitch I can enable Art-Net. I immediately see the Stardust as an Art-Net device in the SoundSwitch Software.

However, in Stardusts WebUl, I have to set Net, Sub Net and Universe. For Universe, I enter 1, as this is the DMX universe l'd like to transmit. However, what do I have to enter for Net and Sub Net? The SoundSwitch documentation doesn't give any hints whatsoever.

Whenever I enter any values for Net and Sub Net and then click "Link", Stardust reverts back to sACN for the particular Output.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

In one of the venues I am a house LD for, we have a rig of of Viper Profiles and DX Washes, and like all Vipers they are getting on in age and not without their problems. One of the most common issue they have is overheating with the error code BATC, meaning ballast temp cut off. Now here's the mysterious thing, this only happens if the lights are left in pink, magenta or purple for extended periods of time. No other colour or even with the dimmer shutters completely closed makes them overheat. They can sit in any other colour all day. My original theory was that the CMY flags in these colours reflect more heat out the back of the unit than other colours causing the base of the fixture to overheat, but then I thought wouldn't dimmer shutters completely closed reflect more heat than pink?

Is there any logic to my theory? I know it sounds bizarre but they really do only do overhear with BATC error in pink, purple and magenta.

so I'm delving a little bit deeper on my own time to understand programming. I've got one Grand MA2, MA3 that all look promising. I found a couple tutorial videos that I'm going to follow along with for MA3, but is there a visualizer or something that I can see fixtures that I add to my patch list in hog 4 PC?

also if you have fav tutorial videos please feel free to share.

thanks!!

The LED stripe flickers approximately once a second (erratic). The circuit topology is:

QLC+ --> USB --> FTDI Adapter FT232RL --> MAX485 TTL to RS485 --> DMX 512 Decoder --> bus termination resistor 120 Ohm

Trouble Shooting measures

• termination resistor
• Short twisted D+ and D- wires
• 12V 3A Power supply for very short stripe (suitable power supply)
• Checked: No flickering when the USB connection is inactive

What else can I do to suppress any flickering?

https://preview.redd.it/7jsolcdyv94e1.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=882071263e8143815e2cc4e0cc088d6cae90cf28

https://preview.redd.it/4dmv4edyv94e1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd4e27881b9b833ae76eed54c36f2419a0c660db

Hello everyone,

I'm considering investing in my own previz software. What do people think about Capture vs Depence? Or other solutions?

I already have a good amount of experience with Capture from my previous job, but I love the way Depence rendering looks. Biggest downside for me is that Depence requires windows and I'd need to purchase an adequately spec'd laptop for travel.

Hi, I just bought a Antari HZ400 There is a black oily residue as you can see in this picture. Is this normal or can I remove this?

Edit: In title, I meant they were ONLY working on channel 1.

Before I begin, I basically know next to nothing about lighting, but I've been trying to learn since yesterday as it is interesting to me and I usually do live sound for small events, so having both skills could be handy.

Yesterday I tried to set up a basic light setup for a small room, none of the equipment is particularly special. A Stagg Commandor 10 controller, and 9 small off-brand RGB par lights. First I had a lot of trouble getting all lights to work, but I've since find out that there were some defective cables, and some units were not working well together and had to be replaced. Finally, I've managed to set up all 9 lights on channel 1, and they all work together perfectly at 6 channel mode.

Then I tried to set them up as different fixtures on the controller, and according to the manual, fixture 2 starts at channel 15, next one at 29 and so on at 14 channel intervals, and up to 16 fixtures. However, if I set up any light at any other channel, they would be off for a few seconds, and then turn on all colors to almost full brightness, which I believe is some sort of error state of not receiving any DMX data or something? Because having the lights in DMX mode with no cable connected behaves the same way.

The controller should be handling up to 224 channels according to the manual, but I believe that for some reason, it's only transmitting the first 14 channels and no more. I can't figure out why, maybe the cables aren't good, or something is wrong with these particular lights, though they do work perfectly fine on channel 1, and as intended according to manual. It's not a life or death situation, as it is a small setup for small events at a house, but I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this issue, and I'm really puzzled by this, any help would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance to all!

I have some ideas on how to connect a pad to DMX values so when I press it, it makes a light effect. This is cool to "play light with a live band". Though, what I don't know is how would you change this interaction between scenes of the shows ? Example : the pad lights up channels 1-2-3-4 at 255 during the first scene but 8-10-12 at 125-130-250 in scene 2 etc...

I'm asking about what software would you use to do that and what is the general approach if there is a major one.

Hope it's clear enough!

Hello I have a question how can I keep a time for specific date on Madrix 5 it can run the scene each year same date

So I have an Lampy 40 and I wanted to create a lightshow with it on a song and now I know you can use timecode to controll a cuelist, but I dont know how I could send Timecode cues to the lampy 40 so my questions are.

1. Which software can I use to send cues to the lampy 40 with timecode
2. Which cable do I need to buy to connect my pc with the midi connector on the lampy 40

Hey I am currently looking for a church in my area for new wash and spot fixtures for they tech pool. They are manly used on stages approximatly 6m by 4m and hang between 2.5 to 4 m above the stage.

As always the budget is not that big and they want to buy approxi.atly 4 spots and 6 to 8 wash lights.

Already looked into the Eurolite LED TMH-X4 Zoom Wash, but neverused them myself... Any advise is highly appreciated.

I have multiple moving lights, wash lights, LED lights, a bunch of uplights, and LED walls. I've been in business for over 10 years, doing lighting for various events such as weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, corporate, and so on. All of my business has been referral-based; however, I'm looking to expand and get bigger jobs. Where would you guys suggest I find more jobs? I'm located in Los Angeles.

I’m bored with a full size here sitting next to me for the next 2 hours.. anyone have an easy to load Vegas Mode show file?

Currently tasked with lighting up our large office events space which we also rent for private events on weekends. Our company has a lot of stage based masterminds so incorporating natural white key lights is helpful.

We’re having an end of year party and instead of spending 10k on renting lights and draping, I’ve been given the go ahead to just buy the gear instead.

With truss, moving spots/floods, and PARs — how do you split it up?

Wondering if there are any resources that exist that would help with making my own moving head fixtures? Was thinking about trying this as an experiment/learning experience and if it goes well maybe using some custom stuff for gigs. I have experience with addressable LEDS, was thinking of maybe using those to some extent, or are there better ways to go about it? Maybe using an existing fixture and frankensteining it would make sense to start. Not all that experienced with moving head repair unfortunately but have a few I could take apart to look at the guts of.

Has anyone else has done this or similar and what were your results? Would love to see any sort of creative light fixtures/installations

Hey all, I'm a student running small gigs at our stage. Currently I have a couple cheap Chinese lights washing the stage.

Our last gig was on friday and I had no choice put to put our 2 small white lights to the sides of the stage. this left a nasty shadow and unevenly lit faces. Is there a way to avoid this. I have 2 small white lights. Can place to the side or front, directly above or mount to a small bar just above the front of the stage.

Thanks. Open to any ideas. Ill upload a pic of the current layout.

Circles were roughly where the white lights were. Yellow signals the stuff I was talking about.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture because our school threw it out but it was a dmx handheld controller with 6 pronged dmx and it kind of looked like a calculator. Based on the button labels it did most of the stuff a board would do for individual lights. Does anyone know what it is?

Hi,

Does a axis of a moving head need crease for maintenance?

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but giving it a shot. I’m looking to make a career change from architectural project design to lighting design. I have a master’s degree in architecture and about 20 years of experience in the field. I’m always inspired by spaces and buildings with thoughtful and well executed lighting. I’m often working with electrical engineers who are spec’ing lighting and try to guide them to better design but am encouraged to “stay in my lane”. So I’d like to have a better education in lighting and be the consultant who designs it. Any recommendations on coursework, certificate programs, or paths to make that transition?

Hey everyone! I have two LED bar lights I would like to control using Logic on my MacBook Pro. My band plays to a click. No back-tracks yet. I want to control my lights using the same file running my clicks. Do I need a usb-DMX interface? What is the easiest software to learn from? I’ve researched and heard so many options it’s hard to know what’s good or bad. Light Key? QLab? Chromateq? Is the ENTTEC Pro the best option? Please help!! I am a beginner and know nothing about the lighting world.

Thanks in advance!